Improve Your Memory – Exercise Your Brain
by Research has collected a large body of evidence that some healthy, older people remain more mentally alert than others do. Part of this body of evidence has identified a definite link to maintaining a mentally active lifestyle and staying sharp.
There’s so much information on all the media outlets that it might seem like everyone who reaches retirement age is 20 minutes from losing their memory to Alzheimer’s. Normal aging, healthy or not, brings some loss of mental speed that does not indicate a sign of approaching problems.
However, research has collected a large body of evidence that some healthy, older people remain more mentally alert than others do. Part of this body of evidence has identified a definite link to maintaining a mentally active lifestyle and staying sharp.
What happens as you age is that it takes longer for you to process information and it is more difficult to multitask. You might not function as well under stress or pressure as you did a few years back. Short-term memory might fade before you can process it satisfactorily enough to remember it. This is perfectly normal as you age and not dementia.
Research at the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrated that rats raised in a mentally rich environment, with lots of stimulation, other rats and new challenges, had larger brains and were smarter than rats raised with no stimulation in an empty cage. The experiments also showed that when the rats raised in empty cages were moved into an enhanced environment, they grew larger brains and were smarter.
How does this apply to you?
Inactivity and lack of mental stimulation will effectively retard your thinking skills and your memory. That shouldn’t be a big surprise if you think about other parts of your body. Don’t take care of your teeth, you will lose them. Just sit all day and your ability to walk will eventually be compromised. No exercise at all and you will gain weight and probably suffer several diseases that will hinder your enjoyment of retirement. The old adage, “Use it or lose it” is true.
On the good side, research has discovered that we can generate new brain cells if we keep our minds busy learning new things. There are several exercises you can do to start making new brain cells for yourself.
Puzzles of any type are good mental stimulation if they are new to you. Solving the same puzzle repeatedly does not allow you to learn new relationships between pieces or to develop new ways to learn. Word search and crossword puzzles are great for this mental exercise. Even solving those 500-piece or 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles that take days or a week or two to put together will help.
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